IT’S SIMPLE, SIMON
Tell us the truth.. did you know about the €391m overspend all along? And yet you still can’t find more money for our dedicated nurses..
SIMON Harris’ career is hanging in the balance after memos showed he did know about the National Children’s Hospital huge overspend.
The Health Minister maintains he was unaware of the €391million black hole until last November – despite correspondence dated in August.
Sinn Fein last night called for him to be sacked but the defiant Fine Gael man hit back and said: “The job of a minister is not to be a messenger boy, getting a little bit
of information and running and telling everyone.”
He told RTE’S Prime Time: “If you read the documents you’re talking about high degrees of uncertainty, a process to be undertaken, volatility in the figures, more work to be done, these are the things that are being said... by experts.”
Mr Harris released a memo that said the construction budget was €191million above the previous price estimate.
It also stated the main construction company had submitted substantial additional costs to the tune of approximately €200million.
That brought the total possible overrun to €391million, which is also the amount detailed in the minutes of the September meeting of the project’s oversight board.
Sinn Fein health spokeswoman Louise O’reilly insisted the minister’s position is untenable and Taoiseach Leo Varadkar must remove him from his position.
She said: “Minister Harris’ story is unravelling before our very eyes.
“The memo published this evening clearly shows he was aware of a €391million overrun at the hospital as far back as August yet he did not inform his cabinet colleagues until November 9.
“This means he was aware of a massive cost overrun at the hospital while he and his government were putting together the budget for this year yet he never mentioned it till after the budget was announced.”
Despite the memos which show pending hundreds of millions in overruns throughout August, September and October last year and include handwritten notes from the minister, Mr Harris is sticking to his story.
He claims he didn’t know the true extent of the extra costs until November.
Five memos have been released that track the board’s concerns over the course of three months and show Mr Harris was kept abreast all along.
On releasing the memos, a spokesman for Mr Harris said: “It remains the position he did not know about the final figures until November 9.
“He informed the Taoiseach and the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform on that date.
“The work undertaken from August on was essential to enabling the Minister to bring to Cabinet a thorough assessment and a clear recommendation.”
Another series of explosive emails released late last night showed a number of frantic emails between the Department of Health and Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. The correspondence documents how both sides were trying to get to grips with the soaring costs.
In April 2017 the budget for the vital piece of national infrastructure had come in at just under €1billion.
Just before Christmas last year the official cost had rocketed to €1.4billion and the realistic estimate for the final outrun is expected to be closer to €2billion.